Sixers' Young growing into his role

PHILADELPHIA --- At halftime of any basketball game, the entertainment options are limitless. For the Sixers the other night, all they needed to remain amused were the mid-game statistics.

“They all said that I was leading the team in assists,” Nick Young was saying Sunday, breaking into a laugh. “I said, ‘Hey, that’s a first.’”

Young had made his first start since Dec. 18 Saturday, scored 20 points, had four assists and helped the Sixers thump the New York Knicks, 97-80. The plan was for the Sixers, tormented by slow starts, to start their most viable offensive players and to worry later about the diminished bench strength.

Known for his shooting --- mostly, that he does it so often --- Young provided his usual scoring. But he also defended well and had his four assists before halftime. More to form, he did not have a second-half assist, keeping his season high at five. Yet he was what the Sixers needed, when they needed it. He was active. Everyplace.

“The thing we have tried to do all year with Nick is try to force him to develop a routine and good habits,” said associate head coach Michael Curry, who ran practice Sunday at PCOM in the absence of Doug Collins, who is recovering from sinus issues. “We wanted him to do things that you do as a winning ballplayer. And he’s getting better. He’s getting better.”

That message hit Young in stride a couple of weeks ago when, though healthy, he did not play at all in the Sixers’ 107-100 victory over the Houston Rockets.

“One of the things Nick did when he got that DNP was that he was the first guy to get upstairs at the next practice and get in his extra work in the weight room,” Curry said. “So all of a sudden, Nick was preparing better. And when Nick’s preparation is good, his production is good on the court. Then he got up and got some shots in and some one-on-one with Evan Turner. And since then, he has been able to produce on the court.”

The Sixers were --- are --- short on time, still seven games below .500 with the Memphis Grizzlies arriving at the Wells Fargo Center Monday night at 7. It’s close to certain that they will start Young again, along with Turner, Spencer Hawes, Jrue Holiday and Thaddeus Young, as that group helped give them a 24-19 lead after one quarter Saturday. It was just the 11th time this season that they had led after 12 minutes.

“I really don’t know,” Nick Young said, smiling. “Doug may change his mind before the game.”

Whatever the lineup twists, Young did nothing Saturday to lose his status. Indeed, his presence on the perimeter, and with the way he helped pressure the Knicks at the defensive side, kept the Sixers thick in good shots. Not coincidentally, Holiday, an All-Star, would go for a career-high 35 points.

“At the start of the second half, Nick was very hot and we kept running plays for him,” Holiday said. “He kept getting to the free-throw line. I think that relaxes him, and I know it relaxes me. Nick takes a lot of pressure off of me. People really try to key on him, and obviously that leads to wide-open shots to get us rolling.”

For reasons not entirely his fault, Young had become something of a personification of the Sixers’ troubles in the first half of the season. Expecting to be anchored in the middle by Andrew Bynum --- and disturbed by their lack of shooting accuracy in a seven-game postseason elimination the prior spring in Boston --- they emphasized perimeter play and shooting in the offseason, signing Young, a free agent, to a one-year contract.

It hadn’t been working quite as they’d hoped.

“The coaches have been pretty tough on me,” Young said. “Every day, I hear it. I had no choice but to do my best and step up and do something out there.”

He acknowledged that the recent benching had given him new inspiration.

“It hurts,” he said. “I have been there before, in my rookie year, in my second year. I don’t want to go back to that, just sitting there, not being on the court. It hurts. I want to be out there playing. I think I can do something. I think I can help this team out a lot. That’s what hurts the most.”

The sixth-year pro from USC had a chance Saturday when he made his fourth start of the season. He can prove it again in the fifth … and beyond.

“I just want to be on the floor, period,” he said. “Whatever they want me to do out there, I am going to try to do my best to do it. That’s how I go out there, with that mindset.”

Even if it means leading the team --- at halftime, anyway --- in assists.